Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Charlatan's Boy is a tale of an orphan and the traveling showman that took him in. We travel around with the duo and take part in their various schemes and search for information about Grady's missing past. I was very excited to see another book by Jonathan Rogers. I had previously read his Wilderking Trilogy and absolutely loved it. The trilogy is a re-telling of the life of King David in a new and unique way. I am from South Georgia and the Okefenokee Swamp area so I could definitely identify with the setting in both these books and the Charlatan's Boy. While the Charlatan's Boy was an easy read, it wasn't quite what I expected. It was a bit slow for me and I found myself wondering when we were going to get to the good stuff. I did thoroughly enjoy the dialect and unique word choice used throughout the book. I also enjoyed the variety of characters we met along the way. It felt like too much background was given and setting up the end result. The last of the book was my favorite and finally gave me some of what I was looking for throughout the book. As such, it does set itself up for a sequel but it just wasn't as engaging as his previous books in my opinion. Still worth a shot, however, especially for a young boy. I would still highly recommend the Wilderking series first though and that series gives you some background and connecting information with this book although they do not have to be read first. I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review through their Blogging For Books program.